Why can't I install apps when I have enough storage?

Question

In "Settings" > "SD card & phone storage settings" under "Internal Phone Storage" it lists "Available Space" as 13.78MB. I'm trying to install an app that is 2.38MB. Why do I get the "Insufficient storage available" error message? I clearly have enough space.

If it's relevant, my phone is an LG Optimus V.

possible duplicate of "Cannot download, not enough space" when "Phone Storage" clearly lists enough space — ale, Jul 03 '12 at 17:34
At least 25MB free space on internal storage is required to get rid of that error (see tag-wiki for "insufficient-memory). — Izzy, Mar 11 '13 at 15:02
At least 25MB, @Izzy? So, why are so many people with similar complaints with hundreds of free MB? — Rodrigo, Jul 07 '16 at 16:31
@Rodrigo look at the date, and follow the link to the mentioned insufficient-memory tag-wiki. Actually it's "25MB or 10% of the storage", whichever is hit first. So with e.g. 10 GB internal storage, it would hit you as soon as you drop below 1 GB free. Crazy, but that's what it is. — Izzy, Jul 07 '16 at 16:33
So they turned completely evil, that's it? Because it makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE!! — Rodrigo, Jul 07 '16 at 16:42

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:18

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Android devices actually have several different buckets of storage that can fill up independently, any one of them can cause an "insufficient storage" error. This question: Why is "insufficient storage" wrongly reported when installing an .apk via adb? seems to cover the details and options best.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:18

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answered Jul 03 '12 at 05:09

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I already do the things mentioned in that link. It seems rooting is the only option I haven't tried. But I don't want to void my warranty... – jumpnett Jul 03 '12 at 05:30
So, I removed all the apps no don't use or can live without, and even though they were on my SD card, I now have 52.7MB of space. What gives? – jumpnett Jul 03 '12 at 05:41
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the move to sd feature leaves stuff behavind, yoi can see this in the app overview in the settings when you move. Plus: I think Android reserves some free space, so that you can do updates. The biggest app counts for this calculation. – ce4 Jul 03 '12 at 06:05
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moving an app to the sdcard only moves the apk. All the data for the app still goes in /data/data. This location, or even /cache, is probably one of your reason for the low storage message. These tend to fill up a lot faster then the app install location /data/app. Especially with apps like twitter, facebook, and google+. They tend to write a lot of data to the /data/data folder. – Ryan Conrad Jul 03 '12 at 16:34

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 27 '12 at 23:36

I had the same issue....

I tried the whole remove updates thing, I tried the delete apps, turn off gmail, gtalk etc. etc. etc.

What you need to try before all of that is to confirm that Media background data is not turned off. Download Manager is a component of Media.

Settings>Usage>Media make sure Media is not ticked. I ticked this when I was tinkering with the settings... and for 3 weeks I couldn't work out why I couldn't download apps via 3g/4g.

I don't have a 'Usage' option under settings. – jumpnett Nov 27 '12 at 23:39 — jumpnett, Nov 27 '12 at 23:39

Why can't I install apps when I have enough storage?

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